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Chappy Town Column: June 21

Chappaquiddick will be sending two high school graduates out into the world to pursue their dreams. Sarah Gruner will be attending Massachusetts College of Art and Design, known as MassArt, where she will further her photographic art interests. Caleb Enos will enter Cape Cod Community College, 4-Cs for short, to study all of the many aspects of filmmaking. Over the next three years more Chappaquiddickers will graduate from high school; three in 2014, two in 2015 and four in 2016.

Mytoi Garden is seeking volunteers on Wednesdays from 9 a.m. to noon to help weed, rake and all of the other jobs that keep the garden beautiful. Call Lindsay at 617-515-3348 with questions. No need to sign up ahead of time, just show up. They have all of the tools.

The Trustees of Reservations are busy with Cape Poge Lighthouse tours. Pick up one of their pamphlets at the ferry point or at any of their facilities. They offer almost a dozen different tours, some available now and others starting in July, including special moonlight kayak paddle tours and twilight Cape Poge Lighthouse tours. Call 508-627-3599 to make a reservation. For TTOR up to date beach information, call 508-627-8390. As the shoreline and the shore bird activities change daily, so does access to the beaches.

The Slip Away Farmstand is open Friday through Sunday from 10 a.m. until dusk. The most recent offerings are radishes, kale, snap peas, turnips, sauté greens, Napa cabbage, kohlrabi, rainbow chard, flowers, triple-washed spinach and three kinds of lettuce, all started from seed on the farm. The chickens are keeping up with the egg production. They also have six-packs of seedlings and potted morning glories as well as Mermaid Farm yogurt and Chilmark coffee. The two new beehives are buzzing with activity and the school house renovation is just about complete.

Bart Heywood is doing the work on what was once part of his childhood summer home. He showed me the different colors that his mother tried out on the old plaster ceiling.

The Pied Piper ferry to Falmouth has been operating on its spring schedule since Memorial Day weekend with service on Friday, Saturday and Sunday. The full summer schedule will begin on Monday, June 25. Hard to believe that this is their 17th year of operation. Those who use this service know how convenient it is to hop on the boat right at Memorial Wharf, rather than spending precious time getting to Oak Bluffs or Vineyard Haven. Some Pied Piper passengers, and you know who you are, like to savor every minute on Chappy and wait until the very last minute to get to the ferry point. There are some tense moments as we strain our eyes to see if the Pied Piper has started to cast off her dock lines. On more than one occasion, a call from the Chappy Ferry over the marine radio to the Pied Piper’s captain has averted the disappointment of missing the boat. But if you do miss the boat, there’s always another one tomorrow and that means one more day for you on Chappy. I’m sure that your boss will understand.

By the time you read this, the last potluck dinner of the season will have been eaten. But the CCC is just beginning to hum. Among the many activities at the CCC are mah jong, yoga, tai chi, core fitness, pilates, 12-step, tennis, playgroup, book club and sailing. Donna Defrances returns to give tennis lessons. Justin Painter and assistant Elizabeth Reynolds start the sailing program on Monday, June 24. Manager Lynn Chronister will be joined by summer office assistant Alex Dunbrack. You can see the whole list of activities on the website or the big chalkboard on the porch. There is also a bulletin board at the ferry point dedicated to the CCC or call 508-627-8222.

Be sure to mark your calendars for the CCC fair on Saturday, July 20. There will be games for all, lots of food, the book sale and bake sale. You don’t want to miss the dog show.

You still have time to read this month’s Chappy Book Club selection before the discussion next Wednesday, June 25, at the community center at 10:30 a.m. Zeitoun by Dave Eggers is the story of one family’s experience with Hurricane Katrina. I looked on the internet at the Quicklet summary of the book. It’s the online version of Cliff Notes. The book is a compelling true accounting of a nice guy who gets swallowed up by an ill-mannered bureaucracy.

Last Saturday Joe Smith gave a talk on the willet, a migratory shore bird that winters in South America. Information gathered from a microchip in a leg band enables researchers to get a better idea of the bird’s activities, even whether his feet got wet. For instance, during a three-day period when his feet stayed dry you know that he was in the air flying between North and South America.

Future talks are scheduled for July 15 at 7 p.m. on beach, bank and cliff nesting birds and on July 22 at 7 p.m. about the river otter. These talks are sponsored by Luanne Johnson through her non-profit organization BiodiversityWorks, along with her associate Liz Baldwin. Curry Jones’s granddaughter Nika Slade will be working with them this summer. Take a look at their website. The talks are at the CCC and are free.

Speaking of nonprofits, when I was a small child my grandmother ran an interior decorating business out of her house in Summit, N.J. One of my first reading experiences with contractions was sounding out the words on a small slip of paper taped to her office door that read, “This is a non-profit company. It wasn’t meant to be, that’s just the way it’s turning out”.